Awards
Coates-Humphreys Distinguished Research Award
Coates-Humphreys Distinguished Research Award
In 2025, the NAASE Executive Board conferred its inaugural research award on Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys. The award was named in their honor to recognize not only the distinguished scholarly records of the recipients (the primary criterion for the award), but also to acknowledge their extensive contributions to NAASE, including serving as presidents of the organization and activities connecting NAASE to sports economics communities within and outside North America. The award will be given in odd-numbered years, and the selection committee will be previous award winners and the current president of NAASE.
Recipients
2025: Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys
Larry Hadley Service Award
Larry Hadley was a distinguished economist and long time faculty member at the University of Dayton who helped launch the burgeoning field of sports economics. Together with Elizabeth Gustafson, he organized one of the first sessions on sports economics at the Western Economics Association meetings in 1995. Based on the popularity of these sessions, together with the growing worldwide interest in the discipline.
One result of Larry’s efforts to initiate and nurture these annual sessions was the formation of NAASE in 2007. Beyond organizing conference activities, Larry co-edited two widely cited and popular volumes of collected papers which surveyed a number of important research topics in the field. Larry was also a member of numerous editorial boards and scholarly associations.
NAASE created the Larry Hadley Service Award in recognition of its namesake’s valuable service contributions to the field of sports economics. Originally awarded every four years, it is now presented every other year to a deserving recipient who has distinguished herself or himself through service to NAASE and the field of sports economics. Individuals can contribute to sports economics in many ways, but this award is intended to honor those whose contributions to the community are deemed unusual and outstanding in scope and duration.
Recipients
2024: John Solow
John Solow served as NAASE’s Treasurer from its founding in 2007 through 2022. He spent a long career conducting research in the field of sports economics, serving on the faculties of University of Iowa and University of Central Florida. During his 15-year stint on the Executive Committee, he was a regular attendee at NAASE conference meetings, where he played a strong role in promoting the organization.
2022: Dennis Coates
Dennis Coates is Professor of Economics at the University of Maryland – Baltimore County. He is author of numerous articles and currently serves as the editor of the Journal of Sports Economics and also edits the sports economics series for Springer Publishing. He was one of the founding members of NAASE.
2018: Placido Rodriguez
Placido Rodriguez is Professor of Economics and Sports Economics at the University of Oviedo, Spain. He is the author of numerous articles and the editor of many collected volumes on sports economics. In addition to his economic research, he is the former president of the Real Sporting de Gijón football club. Professor Rodriguez provided enormous service to sports economics, and has clearly distinguished himself by organizing conferences that provided researchers in the field with a venue to present their research and an opportunity to interact with other scholars and make enduring international connections that promoted development of the field. His longstanding organization of conferences in Gijón nurtured and guided the field of sports economics. Without his service, the field of sports economics would not be where it is today.
2014: Leo Kahane
The Association awarded the 2014 Lawrence H. Hadley Distinguished Service Award to Leo Kahane. Professor Kahane received his Ph.D. from Columbia University, and is Professor of Economics at Providence College after previously serving on the faculties of California State University- East Bay and Mt. Holyoke College. The author of several dozen refereed articles and book chapters, in February 2000, Leo founded the Journal of Sports Economics, the first journal dedicated solely to the field of sports economics. He went on to serve as the editor of the journal for 16 years as the journal doubled its number of annual issues and became widely respected as a leading economics journal.
2010: Elizabeth Gustafson
The Association awarded the inaugural Lawrence H. Hadley Distinguished Service Award to Elizabeth Gustafson — a colleague, co-author, and good friend of Larry Hadley. Professor Gustafson received her Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina, and served on the faculty at the University of Cincinnati, Miami of Ohio, and the University of Dayton (where she is currently the Associate Dean of the School of Business Administration). Elizabeth has a long and rich scholarly record which includes publications in the Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Econometrics, and Journal of Sports Economics. It was said that her service contributions to the Association, and to sports economics in general, are many and notable.
Graduate Student Paper Award
A committee of NAASE members selects the best sports economics research paper authored by a graduate student. The winner is selected from student-submitted papers.
Recipients
2025: Aiden Powell, West Virginia University, “Professional Sporting Events and Emergency Medical Service Response Times: Evidence from New York City.”
2024: Kyutaro Matsuzawa and Emily Arnesen, University of Oregon, “Sports Betting Legalization Amplifies Emotional Cues & Intimate Partner Violence.”
2023: Bryan Khoo, West Virginia University, “Stadiums and Traffic Congestion Generated by Major Sporting Events.”
2020: Candon Johnson, West Virginia University, “The Impact of the Olympic Games on Employment Growth: A Synthetic Control Approach.”
2019: Josh Matti, West Virginia University, “Frustrated Customers: The Effect of Unexpected Emotional Cues on Yelp Reviews.”
2018: Yulia Chikish, West Virginia University, “Multiple Reference Points and Economic Decisions: Evidence from Figure Skating.”
2017: Radek Janhuba, CERGE- EI, “Do Victories and Losses Matter? Effects of Football on Life Satisfaction.”
2016: Dante DeAntonio, Lehigh University, Do Holdouts pay? Estimating the Impact of Delayed Contractual Agreement on NFL Rookie Contract Values.